Highculture and tall chimneys examines how nineteenth-century industrial Lancashire became a leadingnational and international art centre. By the end of the century almost everymajor Lancashire town possessed an art gallery, while Lancashire art schoolsand artists were recognised at home and abroad. The book documents theremarkable rise of visual art in Lancashire, along with the rise of thecommercial and professional classes who supported it. The new industrial towns of Lancashire looked to the cultural history of othergreat civilisations, and in particular the history of their art, to understandthe rapidly changing world around them. Roscoe's Liverpool of thelate-eighteenth century emulated Medici's Florence, Fairbairn's Manchesterlooked to Rome, while a century later Preston built an art gallery as a tributeto Periclean Athens. Yet the art institutions and movements of the county werealso distinctively modern. Many embraced the fashions of the time to promotesuccessful commercial exhibitions while others, such as the 'Manchester School'of the 1870s, embraced avant-garde French approaches to create aproto-impressionist movement. Consequently local art institutions often becamea cultural battleground for alternative visions of society.

This volume is essential reading for all those with an interest in the socialand cultural controversies of the nineteenth century, from art lovers andcollectors to urban and social historians.